132 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



eggs. These eggs, however, were of very poor quahty, very 

 few hatched, and the fish that did issue therefrom were 

 weak. This was doubtless due to the warm weather that 

 succeeded the cold spell and which drove the water tempera- 

 ture up rapidly. 



A peculiarity of the nests cleaned up early in the season 

 was the large number of very small diameter, and also a 

 number that apparently were cleaned in a hurry and eggs 

 deposited thereon before completion. Some of the nests 

 were so very obscure that the searchers only came upon 

 them by accident. Another peculiarity was the considerable 

 number of nests close together. On one pond under my 

 special charge there was a stretch where the nests in no in- 

 stance were more than ten feet apart, and there were several 

 places where three and four nests were finished close to- 

 gether with not more than one or two feet intervening. 

 They were as close together as sunfish nests often are. The 

 observations made by me and my men confirm what has 

 been quoted before, that bass cease cleaning up nests and 

 depositing eggs when the water temperature falls to 55°, 

 that eggs will be killed when the water temperature lowers 

 to 45°. It also demonstrates that bass, even in a wild state, 

 do not necessarily build nests far apart. It also indicates 

 that with rapid rise of temperature bass eggs are as of 

 poor quality as shad eggs under the same conditions, and 

 finally that the parent bass will not watch and care for their 

 young many days after the normal period. 



